


Love

by navaan



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Healing, Love, One Shot, Recovery, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 21:44:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the ruins of District 12 Peeta and Katniss have to figure out once again what it means to love and how it can help them heal. Set after <i>Mockingjay</i>, before the epilogue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love

They shared their first kiss in front of the ruins of his old home. If you could even call it _ruins_ , because not much was left of the bakery, just some rubble and dust and dirt.

It wasn't really their first kiss, of course, but after all that had happened it might as well have been their first _real kiss_. They were both different people now – and this was a new life, so Peeta was inclined to remember this as a first time.

Katniss had watched him working through all the pain and denial when faced with the destruction of his childhood home, and reached for his hand. And although what he was feeling for her was still conflicted and complicated it had helped to have her here, to have her close and by his side once again. Her presence had been comforting and he'd smiled at her, overwhelmed by feelings of new-found fondness for her.

She had leaned up to kiss him, taking him by surprise. And in that moment he had just needed _something_ , _anything_ to hold on to and so had not pulled away.

Now they were still holding hands, staring at the place that should have been a home, but just wasn't there anymore.

Peeta felt lightheaded and nervous suddenly. Things were new and uncertain and the two of them were both broken traumatized and tired of fighting, tired of war and losing people, tired of being used, unsure of where to go from here. This kiss wasn't supposed to happen. Not here. Not now. Not in the middle of all the sad memories and the remains of his once happier life. No, not while so many things were still uncertain.

They were only now starting to grow back together as friends - or as people who'd gone through hell together - and Peeta with his still slightly unreliable memories wasn't sure they ever really had been more than that. _Star crossed lovers_. Whatever he had wanted for himself, that part of their relationship had only been an act - at least on her part.

But here they were, back home in District 12 were everything had started, piecing their lives together, rebuilding, grieving and holding hands.

“I don't know anything about love,” Katniss said softly, probably trying to explain something – to put him at ease, or put herself at ease maybe. He couldn't be quite sure. It had taken him so long to feel sure of anything again that he wasn't even going to question his own feelings for her now. She was Katniss. He'd loved her once. He still loved her now. And she was pointedly not looking at him, but was still holding on to his hand as if for dear life. “I don't know how this can work. But I...” She stopped, worrying her bottom lip in a nervous gesture he'd seen frequently since they had come back to live in District 12.

“You don't want to be alone?” he asked, harshly, realizing immediately how cruel it sounded. He had grown to love her again, but something inside him still twisted and turned and sometimes even raised its ugly head.

He wasn't even sure Katniss realized what had prompted his words, when she answered, calmly and giving no sign of reaction to his harsh words: “No. Being alone doesn't scare me.” It seemed as if she had more to say, but then she turned away. Even then she didn't let go of his hand and he squeezed it a little, thankful that she was here with him and not running at the first signs of trouble.

And then he understood. It made so much sense. Because now, here in this place, he could really emphasize.

“Katniss?”

“Yes?”

“I think I understand. But you're wrong.”

She looked up at him, questioning, guarded and a little wary.

“You know about love, Katniss. And you know it can hurt you. I think I fell in love with you, because of it. Back then... Back when I was a different person.” He swallowed down the lump that was forming in his throat. “How can anyone from District 12 volunteer to take the place of his beloved sister in the Hunger Games if it's not out of love? How can anyone do what you've done to protect your family if it's not for love?”

Katniss looked away from him again, down at her own feet, face a passive mask that gave nothing away. She kicked at the dirt in front of her, probably frustrated, maybe angry. Although angry would be good, because she'd been kind of subdued and emotionless for so long that any kind of emotion actually breaking free and not simmering under the surface would be progress. So Peeta watched her closely, watched her watching the clouds of dust spread and then settle.

“Love is pretty painful,” she concluded. Her mouth was drawn into a thin line. Peeta could easily see the muscles working in her jaw and the tension in her shoulders.

It wasn't a new conclusion to her. That much he could understand now, should have understood when he'd fallen in love with her in the first place. A girl whose family had nearly fallen apart when her father died. He'd seen it, understood some of the strength that had kept her alive, but the Peeta from back then hadn't know her all that well. That Peeta had thought he knew something about the bittersweetness of love, some of the pain even. But he hadn't. He hadn't known anything about pain then.

He knew much about it now.

“I suppose you're right. It' pretty painful.” He looked back at what he supposed was the place his parents had died in, sighed, nodded to himself and grasped her hand tighter. She finally looked at him again, then down at their joined hands with a blank expression, but relaxing slightly. So he felt courageous enough to add: “But it doesn't have to be.”

And there it was. A small smile formed on her face, not quite reaching her eyes yet, but close, so very, very close. It was gone the next moment, replaced by a frown. “That's what I'm afraid of,” she admitted. And despite her words she grasped his hand just a little bit tighter in return.

He looked at his destroyed home, the ruins of his life and a reminder of all that he'd lost and allowed himself to feel all the grief and regret of losing everything but his own life. Everybody had lost something. And maybe Katniss was the only person who could understand what he had really lost, how the Peeta from before had changed.

Katniss, the girl on fire, the Mockingjay, the crazed killer of Panem's new hope, but ultimately just Katniss, a girl who'd survived a war. A girl who had been ready to die so her sister would live and who now was standing beside him alive and mourning the sister who'd meant everything to her.

Life could be so cruel.

Sometimes your choices made a difference, but not in the way you wanted them to.

Sometimes the only thing you could do was try not to be a pawn in anybodies games.

“It's time we make our own life,” he said, not sure why he had to say it out loud.

And Katniss nodded and held on to his hand. “We really should.”

  
==

  
They shared their lives and memories. And sometimes at night they clung to each other, trying to chase away their nightmares together. There would always be scars, but love made it easier to cope, to forget, to remember.

Both of them knew what it was they were feeling, but it took some time until they were ready to say it out loud. They both had learned that love could be painful and they were just rediscovering that love could also give you strength.

“I love you,” Katniss whispered to him one morning, still curled up against him in bed. “I really do.” She sounded more like her old self again. Not afraid of anything. Meeting the world head on.

And he felt it, too. He was ready to take on the world again - without lies, without playing it up for the cameras, without the necessity to fight for his life.

“I love you, too,” he whispered back against her ear.


End file.
